"Threshold of pain is an individual thing" - Sunil Gavaskar supports Shreyas Iyer amid central contract row

Former Indian skipper Sunil Gavaskar has shared his opinion on Shreyas Iyer vs BCCI saga after the board snubbed the talented batter from India’s recent list of centrally contracted players. Ishan Kishan is the other name in the last who has been removed from the list by the BCCI.

While Ishan Kishan’s case was about the southpaw not wanting to play red-ball cricket, the case regarding Shreyas Iyer is a bit more complicated. Reports suggested that the batter was dropped from the Indian squad after the first two Test matches due to the recurrence of his lower back issues.

Reports further claimed that while Iyer informed the BCCI that he would not be able to play for Mumbai in the Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Baroda, the NCA medical team cleared him fit to play. Sunil Gavaskar here is saying that while the medical team can certify their opinion on the fitness of a certain player, they can never understand the pain that particular player is in taking the case of Iyer.

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“No Trainer Can Judge That” – Sunil Gavaskar On Shreyas Iyer’s Issues With Back Pain

“He did miss the quarter-finals, but that was also the time he had informed the team management of his inability to play the third Test match due to some pain in his back if he batted for some length of time,” Gavaskar wrote in his column for Mid Day.

“However, the trainers at the NCA certified that his markers were clean and they found him fit to play. That seemed to have gone against Iyer. Threshold of pain is an individual thing and no trainer can judge that,” he further added.

Iyer’s back issues surfaced again after the second Test against England in Vizag. He has been in and out of the team due to that in recent times. He also informed the BCCI about pain in his groin area as he played more deliveries during the practice sessions.

Gavaskar further supported Shreyas Iyer saying that batter did not refuse to play in domestic cricket for Mumbai unlike his Indian teammate Kishan who had completely removed himself from playing domestic cricket for Jharkhand.

“Nobody still knows why Kishan has not turned up for Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy, while at the time of writing this column, Iyer was in the Mumbai team to play the semi-finals of the Ranji Trophy. Iyer had also played in the Ranji Trophy game as asked by the Indian team management just before this Test series started, so it’s not as if he has refused to play the Ranji Trophy at all” Gavaskar further wrote.

Iyer was unfortunately dismissed for three off eight deliveries in the Ranji Trophy semi-final against Tamil Nadu. The middle-order batter scored 530 runs in the ICC World Cup 2023 including a century in the semi-final against New Zealand.

Despite his good stats in white-ball cricket for India in the last couple of years, he found himself being axed from BCCI’s list of centrally contracted players. This has also hampered his chances of playing in the upcoming T20 World Cup for India even if he has a decent IPL season with KKR in IPL 2024. He returns as their skipper to lead the side.

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